Category: learning curve

Ankle update

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Thanks for your comments on Facebook and on here. The news is good.

A quick squeeze and tug (ooer!) on my ankle revealed that things are apparently healing nicely. And that means that my surgeon (who never actually surged me) has suggested that I can see a physiotherapist and *gasp* start to learn to walk again. He even suggested that I would be “back to normal” in 6 months, which would be perfect for my first game of footy just ahead of my birthday, as I had planned.

The only problem with this scenario is my brain. Given that any slight knock, bump or bit of downward pressure on my ankle generally causes me brief, but blinding agony, my boot – which I had previously seen as rather annoying – I now see as a security blanket.
Even taking my boot off while sitting in bed feels weird. Getting my brain to agree to putting any weight on my bad leg feels completely impossible right now. I shudder even thinking about it. So maybe thinking about it is not what I need to do.

I’m off to Physio this afternoon and we’ll go from there. The road ahead might be long, but at least it’s now straight enough to be able to see my destination.

D-Day

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Today’s the day – in fact this morning’s the morning – when I get an updated prognosis on my ankle.

My overly-optimistic side thinks that I will be ready for a game of footy on the weekend, my more realistic side reckons I’m going to be stuck in my moonboot 24/7 for another few weeks.

boot The big thing for me would be permission to drive again.

But whatever the news from the orthopod, there will be some good news as I apparently get to (finally) pick up my apparently repaired camera from next door to the hospital.

Expect many photos of my bedroom walls in the upcoming days.

Cruise Ship Accident Exercise – Tuesday 12th March

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Disseminating this sort of information will do no good. It never does. Twitter will still be buzzing with “OMG!” and “What’s going on?” tweets on Tuesday morning. Facebook will catch up by next week.

Remember those fire drills at school? Well, they’re going to have a cruise ship disaster drill off Mouille Point tomorrow:

The City of Cape Town wishes to inform residents that a simulated major cruise ship ‘accident’ close to the Port of Cape Town will be conducted on Tuesday 12 March 2013.
The exercise will test the preparedness and ability of the authorities and related agencies to respond to an incident involving an international cruise ship running aground.
Code-named ‘Beachy’, the joint scenario exercise will be led by the City’s Disaster Risk Management Centre.

Of course, even in these days of modern technology when you wouldn’t expect maritime disasters to even be possible, you don’t have to go too far back to remember the last time a cruise ship ran aground.

Italy Ship Aground

So this sort of preparedness is to be applauded.

The accident will take place off-shore from the Mouille Point Lighthouse and a verification and mass-care centre will be established at the Cape Town Stadium to assist survivors of the cruise liner disaster.
Residents living in the vicinity are alerted that the exercise will involve a large contingent of armed forces, law enforcement agencies and emergency and disaster management personnel.
Helicopters from the SA Air Force and the Western Cape Government Health: Emergency Medical Services  will be utilised to evacuate ‘casualties’ from the ship.

If you’ve got a camera and the ability to walk (sadly, I have neither right now), it might be worth going down there and having a look.

But if you can’t get down there, share this post, educate your friends and prevent unnecessary widespread panic on the streets of the Atlantic Seaboard tomorrow.

Africa

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I’m already looking forward to the third installment of David Attenborough’s Africa (we’re about 4-5 weeks behind the UK here).
With the whole resting the ankle thing, I get to watch the recorded episodes again and it’s amazing how much extra detail you notice on a second viewing.

Having already been treated to the Kalahari and the Savannah episodes, I’ve been looking for a suitable currency converter as I now want to visit everywhere I’ve seen. Together with the next episode “Congo”, things could get expensive. But then it’s the big local one which had my UK Facebook stream in raptures last month. And no, one can’t (legally) get iPlayer down here.

Having only seen clips, I’m quite intrigued to see what Sir David has to say about the the Cape, aside from his pronunciation of  “Agoolhas”, which although true to its Portuguese roots, is far from the colloquial method and would get you some funny looks in the hostelries down there.

Anyway, as I said, we’re heading north to the rainforests of central Africa ahead of that, so I still have 10 days to wait.

Africa is on BBC Knowledge (DSTV channel 184) at 1800 CAT on Sundays.